Archive for the ‘Programme’ Category

The time is coming for the final minutes of diploma work. Now, I take a moment to review some of the most important reviews I’ve had in the past months, trying to extract some useful ideas for what will be my final presentation.

The following was commented on a tutorial headed by Gisle Løkken, and with the participation of other students on May 25th:

– To propose Rosengård as a kind of temporary tax-haven, with site-specific trade laws to allow commerce to flourish more easily.

– How would economic development affect the community? What would change in the face of the neighborhood in relation to this development? And how would these changes relate to the people who live there? Think of this project’s evolution in time: (un)projected growth.

– Gardening vs Farming: what is more realistic and productive for a place like Rosengård? Show this in the project, make plant-growing a VISIBLE activity.

– “I wanna see the goats” – Can Rosengård have space for activities like shepharding, and other seemingly out-of-place trades?

– The meaning of work as a tool, socially and ethically, in human development, applied to the people who live in Rosengård.

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On Thursday 27th and Friday 28th of May, the Third Confrontation for the diploma took place in the school. Working under Trudi Jaeger (DAV) and Sverre Sondresen (APP), the following are points that were mentioned in relation to my project:

– The project as a reason for people to stay in Rosengård. So far, people have very few reasons to stay in the community. Could this project be a start for change?

– Joint solutions coming from both the authorities and the people.

– A bazaar proposal that makes use of the public AND the private space. Not only as a “new” activity built in space, but also making use of existing spaces: firs t floors, corner shops, etc.

– The project as a multicultural quilt, where every patch is equally valuable and yet as unique and “on display” as the rest.

– The bazaar: a nice place to be, a nice place to visit. Visiting Rosengård has the great potential of acting as a reality check: people coming here to a bazaar will find a community eager to work and earn a better life, opposed to the riots that Rosengård is known for.

– Simplify my registration drawings, keeping the energy and feelings found in them while incorporating colour to represent the variety found in Rosengård.

– The pic-nic blanket: a place to display, make evident and share.

– Build more models of the actual projects, in different scales. Explore materiality (remember the differences between shopping mall and bazaar when it comes to the sensorial experience), use and scale for design purposes. Very important now.

– If you are too realist, you end up becoming a pessimist. Therefore, it is important to remember the poetry of dreaming.

– Graffiti as a way to deal with frustration and establish an identity. Rosengård is notoriously devoid of graffiti, is this the sign of a population that does not want to be associated with their neighborhood? Additionally, could architecture offer a chance to reterritorialize the neighborhood and make it “valid” to display your pride to live in Rosengård?

– “Graffiti is like when dogs pee. They are not vandalizing a wall. They are defining their territory.”

– Define a strategy / timeline: how does the project grow and evolve? Who does it affect? What will the actions cause? Can it be a kind of chain reaction, where small actions end up causing full blown effects? This is already suggested in the yellow Post Its (see previous entries).

– Use drawings as a design and exploration tool: draw in big sizes (scale up); incorporate to exhibition space; work on the same drawings throughout a span of time – evolution; print on transparent paper for further exploration; use drawings to re-structure the spatial reality of the neighborhood and the project.

We asked all the students in the group to present their projects concisely with a short synopsis. Sverre and I didn’t know anything. They were given 20 minutes each before lunch. The group were already collaborating with each other and were much more familiar with each others projects than either Sverre or I so we consigned everyone with a specific student. They were asked to give their person specific advice about what to concentrate on according to where they were in the process: i.e. to reflect upon a core issue. We others could then either disagree or elaborate on these observations.

Roberto:

Flying kites in the ghetto.

Malmø is one of the fastest-growing migrant areas in Scandinavia.

Bazaar – place where people can utilize and share their skills.

Roberto has vibrant drawing skills! This talent should be used! Make Graffiti idea much larger. Test it out in public space with participants.

A strategy on timeline – what it generates – a new structure.

Add something – open up.

Should focus his project on public space(s).

Discussion about graffiti, about conquering and taking space. The energy this sort of people-participation project would create, if, for example, people from different cultures were encouraged to ‘take’ their space.

Roberto should get locals to make their own marks in the area.

He should start concentrating by building a working model in i.e. 1-25 in order to develop the inter-relationships of the different cultural spaces and their interfaces.

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On June 9th, I had a tutorial with Vibeke Jensen. We discussed the following (I add my own thoughts in this text):

0. General comments

– Explore the conceptual models more and more.

– Integrate gardening into activities like the skate park, and other functions as well. Why should this activity be confined to the colonial gardens?

– Work quickly with conceptual models, and move on to design.

– What I show does not necessarily need to be a finished product in itself, but it should enough detail and information to be understandable.

– Consider other activities and forms of expression, such as hand ad-painting, gossiping, etc.

1. The bazaar – Herrgården

– Make a model that shows inside space, not just the outside. Think of negative, carved space.

– The management of scale is good for the neighborhood’s inhuman conditions.

– An “exploded block” is a good concept. It shows the potential of a single block, the basic construction unit of Rosengård. Explore further consequences of this idea.

2. The promenade – Kryddgården

– The use of lines as a landscape-intervention concept is OK, but they should be soft, adding some contrast to the existing geometry.

– I should define the situations to happen between the buildings: the urban stages, sheltered spaces, community meeting points, etc.

– Integrate this intervention to the landscape, make it a part of the context and not just something that “landed there”.

– How much of a line do I need to show, in order to make a line? What does a line have to offer?

– Think of softer materials.

3. The skate park – Örtagården

– Keep in mind that it can be an activity that includes many people, not just young skateboarders. It can be a meeting point for people interested in urban culture, photography, curious neighbors… even grandmas. I don’t skate myself, I’m almost 30 and yet I am more interested than I ever was, in these activities.

– It can be a kind of agora, a meeting point where things happen. A change in Rosengård’s monofunctionality.

4. 1:1 Sketch

– Make architecture, create space!

– Construct situations, think of the situationist movement?

– Documentate, and get people included.

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Extracts from a June 9th conversation with Camilla Ryhl, KTF:

– Accesible architecture should not only be functional, but also available and open.

– When a person lacks one sense, the other senses sharpen. Think of how these other senses can be stimulated through architecture.

– Ground surfaces and materials can give a good amount of information.

– Be careful when it comes to overstimulation.

The bazaar

– Check out Gjellerup Parken in Aarhus.

– Shopping centres can be a difficult environment for the visually impaird. They offer no visual nagivational clues. They are the same in every direction. They are usually disconnected from their context.

– Take the characteristics of a shopping centre and create a contrast.

– Different-sized units and activity-enclaves in Rosengård are good ideas. They provide a sensorial spatial configuration.

– When it comes to the bazaar, take a couple of units and develop: how do they relate? What happens in between the units?

The skate park

– How do disabled people interact with it?

– A generational meeting place.

– Give more reasons for people to come here.

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Tutorial with Erling Olsen, TTA. June 15th, 2010. I intend to use different materials according to the needs of my sites. These are general comments from this conversation:

– Wood is slippery, but can be transformed and manipulated by people, as opposed to concrete, which offers little chance for interaction.

– Create friction in the surfaces. Winters and water can be dangerous.

– If I use wood, think that it won’t last forever, it will probably have to be replaced every 5 to 10 years. Additionally, wood expands and contracts and is vulnerable to fungus, so it must be isolated from moisture (rubber is a good option for this), both on roof and ground. If this wood is dry, it will last a long time.

– Think of detailing. Show how this will be built.

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Tutorial with Ivo Barros, Sivilarkitekt BAS. June 16th, 2010.

– How do I come to this place? Go from Zoom Out to Zoom In.

– Put my maps in order and try to read a coherent story there. From Scandinavia to Rosengård.

– Show Rosengård in relation to the city of Malmö and its context.

– Work as a masterplan, but show some areas more in detail -à Explain why I chose the sites I work with. Start working in a larger scale and then show how things meet.

– The relation of the intervention with the rest of the city: why would people from Malmö come to Rosengård? -à Think of the comparative advantages of my project and show them.

– Expand my interventions all the way to the main roads that limit Rosengård, and create invitations.

– Use my experience as a foreigner to my own advantage. I have some first-hand knowledge and different takes on issues like urban life, fear, etc.

DAV: the under-used tool

– Use DAV as an exploratory tool. Work with photos and drawings. Explore the 5 small conceptual models and work with them as ways to understand space.

From a past of promises and futuristic ideas, Rosengård revealed itself as a realistic emptiness in the map of Malmö. Tension has grown, the mosque has been victim of arson, riots erupt every now and then in the community… these boxes hold a lot of frustration. This is my proposal to address the problem hands on.

Losing control, keeping desire.

But what happens in the future? Can small changes have further consequences? Should a bazaar be successful in Rosengård, the growth in activity can overtake the public space, which today is empty and sterile. Can we see Rosengård become a landscape of production?

Focusing on the inner workings of this bazaar, it becomes necessary to involve the private space too. While Rosengård is not abundant in neighborhood shops, it does contain some very active shops. Using the private space also has the advantage of recycling built spaces which can also function in the wintertime and connect more directly to the apartment buildings.

The programme begins with a bazaar in Herrgården. The bazaar can work as a dual place: it contains privately owned businesses such as vegetable shops, hookah-cafés or blacksmith workshops, in what is still public space. This duality in character reflects on the intention of the project: to give local residents a reason to feel attached to their community (public) while at the same time create chances to work and develop a sense of ownership (private).

From unemployment to emancipation.

How are these functions organized? Bazaars are noted for having a highly complex inner structure, where alike activities tend to be found in enclaves. This will be further elaborated with models and drawings, and things such as use (to provide as many possibilities for use as possible), scale (bring down this seemingly inhuman scale back to human-size) and materiality (to provide a space which can be altered and marked by its users, and which evolves and ages visibly throughout time) become key issues to be explored with models.